Black Sheep

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “So I’ve been led to believe, sir,” replied Stacy, bowing slightly. “If you are indeed Miles Calverleigh?”

  “I am, but you mustn’t let it worry you,” said Miles kindly. “You don’t favour your father much: for one thing, he wasn’t such a dapper-dog. Hadn’t the figure for it. I collect that yellow calf-clingers are now all the crack?”

  “Oh, decidedly!” said Stacy, whose primrose pantaloons were indeed of the first stare. He laid his hat, and his gloves, and his clouded cane down on the table. “I have been absent from Bath or I should have visited you earlier, sir. You must forgive my seeming remissness.”

  “Well, there’s no difficulty about that: I hadn’t the least expectation of seeing you.”

  “One would not wish to be backward in any attention to so close a relative,” said Stacy, a trifle haughtily.

  “What, not even to such a loose screw as I am? Come, come, nevvy! that’s doing it rather too brown! You are wondering what the devil brings me here, and wishing that nothing had done so!” He laughed, seeing that he had taken Stacy aback, and said: “Come down from your high ropes, and don’t try to stand on points with me: I’ve no taste for punctilio. You don’t owe me respect or observance, you know. Sit down, and empty your budget!”

  “Well, sir—what has brought you home to England?” asked Stacy, with a forced smile.

  “Inclination. Cheroot?”

  “Thank you, no!”

  “A snuff-taker, are you? You’ll end with yellow stains all round your nose, but I daresay you may have caught your heiress before that happens, so it don’t signify.”

  Stacy said quickly, on the defensive: “I don’t know what you—who has told you—”

  “Don’t act the dunce! Miss Wendover told me—Miss Abigail Wendover—and I don’t fancy your suit will prosper.”

  “Not if she has anything to say in the matter!” Stacy said, his brow darkening. “I believe her to be my enemy. I met her for the first time today, and it is very plain she’ll knock me up if she can!”

  “Not a doubt of it. I can tell you of another who is likely to bum squabble you, and that’s James Wendover.”

  “Oh, him!” Stacy said, shrugging. “He may try to do so, but he won’t succeed. Fanny doesn’t care a rush for him. But this curst aunt is another matter. Fanny—” He broke off, realizing suddenly that he had been betrayed into indiscretion, and summoned his boyish smile to his aid. “The thing is that Fanny is an heiress. One can’t blame her family for wishing her to make a great match, but when one is deep in love considerations of wealth or rank don’t signify.”

  “Well, at seventeen a girl may fancy herself to be deep in love, but in my experience it isn’t a lasting passion,” commented Miles cynically. “You aren’t going to tell me that considerations of wealth don’t signify to you, are you?”

  The smile died under that ironic gaze; Stacy said angrily: “Damn it, how could I marry a girl without fortune?”

  “I shouldn’t think you could. According to what I hear, your windmill has dwindled to a nutshell.”

  “Who told you that?” Stacy demanded suspiciously. “I wasn’t aware that you had any acquaintance in England!”

  “How should you be? I have, but it was Letty who told me you’re monstrously in the wind.”

  “Do you mean my great-aunt Kelham?” Stacy said incredulously. “Are you asking me to believe that you have visited her?”

  “Oh, no! I don’t give a straw what you believe. Why should I?” said Miles, with unabated affability.

  Flushing, Stacy stammered: “Beg pardon! It was only that—well, she’s such a devil of a high stickler that I shouldn’t have thought—that is to say,—”

  “I sec!” said Miles encouragingly. “What you would have thought is that she’d have shut the door in my face!”

  Stacy burst out laughing. “Well, yes!” he admitted. “If I don’t owe you respect, I need not wrap it up in clean linen, I collect!”

  “Oh, no, not the least need to do that!” Miles assured him.

  “The thing is that your great-aunt—lord, to think of Letty’s being a great-aunt! She’s no more than a dozen years older than I am!—well, the thing is that she was used to have a kindness for me. That might have been because she detested my father, of course. Come to think of it, your father wasn’t first oars with her by any means. Or it might have been because most females are partial to rakes,” he added thoughtfully.

  “Was that why you were sent abroad?” Stacy asked. “I’ve never known precisely—you see, my father never spoke of you, except to say that you were not to be spoken of!”

  “Oh, I was shockingly loose in the haft!” responded his uncle cordially. “I started in the petticoat-line at Eton: that’s why they expelled me.”

  Stacy regarded him in some awe. “And—and at Oxford?”

  “I don’t recall, but I should think very likely. The trouble then was that I was too ripe and ready by half: always raising some kind of a breeze. Nothing to the larks I kicked up in London, though. A peep-of-day boy, that was me—and a damned young fool! I crowned my career by trying to elope with an heiress. That was coming it rather too strong for the family, so they got rid of me, and I’m sure I don’t blame them.” He smiled mockingly at his nephew. “The luck didn’t favour you either, did it?”

  Stacy stiffened. “Sir?”

  “Tried to leap the book yourself, didn’t you?”

  “That, sir, is something I prefer not to discuss! It was an unfortunate episode! We were carried away by what we believed to be an unalterable passion! The circumstances—the whole truth—cannot be known to you, and—in short, I don’t feel obliged to justify myself to you!”

  “Good God, I trust you won’t! It’s no concern of mine. I may be your uncle, but I’ve really very little interest in you. You’re too like me, and I find myself a dead bore. The only difference I can discover is that you’re a gamester. That’s the one vice I never had, and it don’t awake a spark of interest in me, because I find gaming a dead bore too.”

  “I suppose you’re trying to gammon me—or know nothing of gaming, and that I don’t believe!”

  “Oh, no! I tried gaming, but it held no lure for me. Too slow!”

  “Slow?” Stacy gasped.

  “Why, yes! What have you to do but stake your blunt, and watch the turn of a card, or the fall of the dice ? Same with horse-racing. Now, if I’d ever been offered a match, to ride my own horse against another man’s, that would have been sport, if you like! But I ride too heavy, and always did.”

  “But they said—I was given to understand—that you cost my grandfather a fortune!”

  “I was expensive,” admitted Miles, “though I shouldn’t have put it as high as a fortune. But I got a deal of amusement out of my spendings. What the devil is there to amuse one in hazard or faro?”

  It was evident that Stacy found this incomprehensible. He stared, and said, after a moment: “I should envy you, I suppose! But I don’t. It’s in my blood, and surely in yours too! Father—my grandfather—great-uncle Charles—oh, all of them!”

  “Yes, but you must remember that I was a sad disappointment to the family. My father even suspected me of being a changeling. A delightful theory, but without foundation, I fear.” He threw the butt of his cheroot into the fire, and got up, stretching his long limbs. His light eyes looked down at Stacy, their expression hard to interpret. “Have you lost Danescourt yet?” he enquired.

  Stacy laughed shortly. “Good God, what would any man in his senses stake against that damned barrack? It’s mortgaged to the hilt, and falling into ruin besides! It was encumbered when my father died, and I can’t bring it about. I hate the place—wouldn’t waste a groat on it!”

  “Shades of our ancestors!” said Miles flippantly. “They must all be turning in their graves. Perhaps you are a changeling! Or did you come to visit me in the hope that I might be able to restore your fallen fortunes?”

  “Hardly!” Stacy said, flicking a gla
nce at his uncle’s person.

  “I’m told you came home bear-leading Mrs Grayshott’s son, which doesn’t lead me to suppose you’re swimming in lard! I hope to God that won’t leak out!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so!” said Miles reassuringly. “But you have it wrong: I wasn’t bear-leading him. I was combining the duties of sick-nurse and valet.”

  “Good God! If that should become known—! I wish you will consider my position, sir!”

  “But why should I?”

  “Well, damme, I am your nephew!” Stacy said indignantly. “And you are, after all, a Calverleigh!”

  “Yes, but not at all high in the instep, I promise you. As for our relationship, no one can blame you for being my nephew—I don’t myself—but if it irks you, don’t acknowledge me!”

  “It may seem to you to be a funning matter,” returned Stacy, reddening, “but I shall beg leave to tell you, sir, that it is no very pleasant thing for me to have you here, looking like—oh, dash it, like a regular rough diamond!” He rose, and picked up his hat. “I don’t know how long you mean to remain in Bath, but I trust you are aware of what the charges are in this hotel!”

  “Don’t give them a thought!” said Miles. “I won’t chalk ‘em up to you. If I find myself at a stand, I can always shoot the crow.”

  “Vastly diverting, sir!” snapped Stacy, collecting his gloves and his cane, “Servant!”

  He executed a slight bow, and left the room. He was so much ruffled that he had reached the White Hart before his anger had cooled enough to allow him to consider whether he had acted wisely in letting his temper ride him. He was not naturally an even-tempered man, but he had cultivated an air of smiling good-humour, knowing that it was as great an asset to anyone living precariously on the fringe of society as his handsome countenance. It was rarely that he betrayed irritability, or lost his poise, even under the severe provocation of receiving a set-down from some out-and-outer into whose circle he had tried to insinuate himself, or a high-nosed stare from a great lady whose favour he wanted to win. He began to be vexed with himself, and to wonder what quality it was in his uncle which had set up his bristles; but it was not for some time, and then with reluctance, that it dawned on him that he had been made to fed small. This had nothing to do with Miles’s superior height, and even less with his manner, which had not been that of a man talking to his nephew, but that of a man talking to a contemporary whom he regarded with indifference. Recalling how Miles had lounged at his ease, looking as though he had dressed all by guess, in an outmoded coat, his neckcloth loosened, and an abominable cheroot between his long brown fingers, he felt resentment stir again. He, and not his disreputable uncle, should have been master of the situation, but in some mysterious way he had been made to feel awkward. He had expected to have been received, if not with gratification, at least with pleasure: it had been a piece of condescension on the part of the head of the family to have visited its reprobate, but the reprobate was apparently unaware of this. He had been neither pleased nor displeased, and certainly not gratified; and the only interest he had shown in his nephew was of the most casual order. Stacy found this so galling that he almost wished himself back at the York House, for the purpose of giving the impudent fellow a well-deserved set-down.

  It soon occurred to him, however, that it behoved him to tread warily: even, if he could do it, to make a friend of Miles. Miles knew of his courtship of Fanny Wendover, and there could be small doubt that he had learnt of it from her aunts. He had shown no sign of disapproval: indeed, he had taken as little interest in that as in the disclosure that Danescourt was heavily encumbered, but if he was on terms with Miss Abigail Wendover it might be worth while to make a push to gain his support.

  Marriage had few attractions for Mr Stacy Calverleigh, but it had been forcibly borne in upon him that only by a rich marriage could he escape from embarrassments which had become extremely pressing; and he was determined to marry Fanny, even if he were forced to persuade her to elope with him. But it would be infinitely preferable to marry her with the consent of her aunts and her uncle. Selina he could bring round his thumb, but he had guessed from the outset that Selina was of less importance than Abigail, and that it was Abigail’s influence which was the more likely to weigh with Mr James Wendover.

  He had no illusions about James. He had never known James’s father, or his elder brother, far less his grandfather, but he knew that they had been bywords in their day, and that James was commonly held to be the epitome of a Wendover. He was ruled by two passions: a determination to advance the interests of the family, and an even stronger determination to avoid at all costs anything savouring remotely of the scandalous. He could be depended on to oppose Fanny’s marriage to an impecunious young man of slightly damaged reputation, but once the knot was tied he could also be depended on to hush up the resultant scandal. And if he did not immediately make suitable provision for his wealthy ward he would very soon be obliged to do so, for fear of what people would say. This (according to the malicious) was the dread which governed his conduct. And if Stacy showed himself to be a reformed character people would certainly say very rude things indeed, unless James put Fanny in possession of at least the income from her large fortune, and of her ancestral home. Particularly, thought Stacy, if the clandestine marriage were blessed with an heir. For himself, he had every intention of behaving with the utmost propriety, even of resigning himself for quite some time to living for several months of the year at Amberfield. It would be boring, but once it was known that he was married to an heiress whose property would become his within a few years he would be able to exist comfortably on the expectation. It should be possible for him to settle with his most pressing creditors, and although he would still be in Dun territory there would be no longer any fear of finding himself locked up for debt. Not the most avaricious bluntmonger would proceed to extremes against a man who was heir (by marriage) to a handsome fortune.

  It was not, of course, the ideal marriage. He would have preferred—and, indeed, had preferred—a bride who had attained her majority; but heiresses were few and far between, and since his abortive attempt at an elopement his chances of being allowed to come within speaking distance of one had lessened to vanishing point. On the other hand, Fanny was a little beauty, and he thought that if he must become leg-shackled he would as lief many her as any other. But he wanted to do so with the approval of her aunts; and, having made a conquest of Selina, he had been hopeful of achieving a like success with Abigail. Five minutes in her company had been enough to shatter optimism: Abigail was made of sterner stuff than her sister, and had plainly set her face against him. Probably James Wendover was to blame for that; perhaps another man’s influence could be brought to bear with advantage. She seemed to be on friendly terms with Miles, which made it desirable to lose no time in enlisting Miles’s support.

  So when he attended the ball at the Upper Rooms that evening, and found that his uncle was present, talking to Mrs Grayshott, he seized the first opportunity that offered of greeting him with every sign of pleasure. He was relieved to see that Miles did at least possess knee-smalls and a swallow-tailed coat, but his fingers itched to rearrange a necktie which he thought deplorable, and to brush into a more fashionable style his uncle’s raven locks. His own were beautifully pomaded, and swept into a Brutus; his coat exactly fitted his trim figure; a fob dangled at his waist; a quizzing-glass hung round his neck; the subtle fragrance of Steek’s lavender water clung to his person; and a diamond pin nestled in the folds of his Oriental tie. In fact, as Lady Weaverham observed to Mrs Slinfold, he had the unmistakable London touch. Mrs Slinfold, concurring, added that in her opinion he was the first in elegance of all the gentlemen present; but Mrs Ruscombe, overhearing, said with her shallow laugh: “Oh, do you think so ? Such a fribble! My husband—so naughty of him!—calls him a positive coxcomb!”

  But since everyone knew not only that it was Mrs Ruscombe’s custom to attribute her more damaging criticisms to her meek
spouse, but also that she had made every effort to throw the eldest of her five daughters in Mr Stacy Calverleigh’s way, this remark was received in stony silence. Mr Stacy Calverleigh might be too much of a bandbox creature for everyone’s taste, but he was not a coxcomb, for he neither strutted, nor played off the airs of an exquisite. His manners were very agreeable, so that even the most censorious of his elders were obliged to admit that he was pretty-behaved enough.

  When Miss Abigail Wendover arrived, chaperoning her lovely niece, it was seen that she was wearing another of her London gowns, and agreed amongst her friends that she was in quite her best looks, only Mrs Ruscombe advancing the opinion that it was easy to appear to advantage if one was prepared to squander a fortune on one’s back.

  This estimate was an exaggeration, but, being comfortably endowed, Abby was not obliged to study economy, and had had no hesitation in purchasing an extremely costly gown of figured lace, worn over a satin robe, which hung in soft folds to her feet, and ended in a demi-train. This, as much as the diamond aigrette in her hair, proclaimed to the knowledgeable that she had no intention of dancing; but Mr Miles Calverleigh was not of their number, and presently made his way to where she was sitting, and begged to have the honour of leading her into the set which was then forming.

  She smiled, but shook her head, saying: “Thank you, but I don’t dance.”

  “I’m glad of that,” he said. Then, as surprise and quick amusement leapt into her eyes, he laughed, and added: “I’m a shocking bad hand at it, you see! May I sit down, and talk to you instead?”

  “Pray do!” she responded. “I have been wishing for the opportunity of talking to you, sir. Have you yet made the acquaintance of your nephew?”

  “Yes, he was so obliging as to pay me a visit today.”

  “What do you dunk of him?” she demanded.

  “Why, nothing! Must I?”